A Relative Darkness
by Marlee Greenwich
Summary: A story about loss and shadows, not about the characters from L word but a story of lesbian love none-the-less.
1. Chapter 1

**My mind slips back in time, groping for the moment when it all began. Nothing tangible stays with me, no real decision. The first time I think about it, I decide that it was that morning after art class, but then**** I consider the oak tree and slide even further back to the day that we met. Once I start I am on a roll and I could trace it all back to the Big Bang if I wanted to, but it's pointless. In the end, it was nobody's fault. If I have to choose a point, though, a moment when the starter's gun fired, it would be that last day with Simon. Not that I blame him. This would have happened without **_**me**_**, even excluding Simon. It was only by a series of events that I was lucky enough to have a part in it, until the end. Have a part of her, I mean.**

He had come to my house specifically for the purpose of breaking up with me and I could tell. Simon was not a boy of hidden motives or emotions, not one to persuade anyone that he was thinking something he wasn't. His slight awkwardness, his tendency to blurt out his thoughts, was what first attracted me to him. Today, though, his absent fiddling with the family photos on our mantelpiece annoyed me because I knew what he had come here to say and I had no intention of chatting idly with him until he came to his point. I was so distracted by my studies of his hesitant behavior that I almost didn't notice as he started to talk to me, his back still turned to my figure on the couch.  
I watched the back of his head bow over with embarrassment, maybe even shame, and noted that his dark brown hair seemed darker than ever in the light of my living room. Simon was skinny and young—I always felt that he was younger than me, though we were both eighteen. It was his way of looking up to everyone, his way of making statements into questions, or his sloppy grin that made him seem juvenile, but now he was trying to be a man by breaking up with me though we both knew the relationship was over.  
"I don't necessarily mean forever?" he said, turning to me finally. I gazed at him, hoping that my wide eyes made me appear surprised rather than giving away that I hadn't been paying attention. Guilt was floating across his face and I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He was leaving for the summer to work in his uncle's hardware store the state over, too far away for us to see each other. Even as I thought this I knew that it wasn't the real reason for our breakup. Lesser relationships had survived a two-month hiatus and Simon was still coming back to start college in the fall. We could have easily stayed together, and yet...here we were.

But I wasn't upset. I understood that I should have been, but I wasn't. Staring at his pleading, doe-like eyes, I realized that the relationship had been boring me. Neither of us had ever planned to take the relationship to a higher level than it was already at. We had been leaking enthusiasm for quite a while, and now the ship was sinking.  
"Fisher?"  
My mind focused. "Yes?"  
"Are you okay?" His speech was done, the carefully rehearsed words uttered to the empty space already springing up between us.  
"Yes, I'm okay."

All the same, as I sat with my sketchbook on my bed that night, drawing fawns gamboling in a meadow that stretched to the horizon, I did already miss Simon. The deer looked at me with wide eyes and I wondered if it was Simon I was missing, or just his company. I was missing something.

**I can't stop crying and it's a problem. It's the painful sort of crying, where tears seem to be forced out of the eyes only because the face is contorting so drastically that there is nowhere else for them to exist. My breath refuses to glide in and out of my body with any sort of ease; it snaps in and out in gasps that leave me feeling dizzy. Sometimes the crying stops all on its own and it's very surprising; my chest suddenly loosens, allowing me to breathe, and I take the opportunity to scrub my face clean with my sleeve or knuckle or pillow; whatever happens to be on hand.**

**This is one of those moments, so I take the edge of my comforter and rub it against my eyes. They feel as if sandpaper has been used liberally across them. I whimper just a little, and the whimper is followed by a brisk but soft knock on my bedroom door. My mother sweeps in the moment her knuckles leave the grain of the wood, bothering to knock but never bothering to wait for a reply. She holds a large box of tissues in one hand that look beautifully soft, and I find myself staring at them longingly rather than looking at my mother. She hesitates, and I am suddenly embarrassed for her to see my face.**

**"I brought these for you," she says, regardless of my blotchiness. I wonder if she had been waiting outside the door for the sounds of my crying to cease before coming in. She walks softly to my dresser and sets the box down. She continues, "Bridget's here."**

**My stomach flips over, and I put a hand to my face. I am not in the mood for someone to attempt to comfort me, and the thought of Bridget seeing me so indisposed makes me uncomfortable. "She can come in," I rasp. Bridget appears from the hallway where she had been waiting around the corner, and enters the room. My mother leaves without a word, closing the door gently behind her.**

**My best friend stands still for a moment in the center of the room, looking strangely awkward, as if she has not stood there hundreds of times before. Then she gathers her resolve and seats herself gingerly next to me on my bedspread. At this my eyes, without warning, fill with hot tears again. I look away from Bridget, swallowing as hard as I can. "You never really liked her anyway," I whisper accusingly, and the words cause the tears to spill down over the slopes of my cheeks.**

**"No, but you loved her."**

**At first this is news to me, and I look at her, shocked. Then sobs rise in my throat. "Oh, my god. I did, I did, I loved her, I did." I begin to cry in earnest now, uncontrollably, and Bridget wraps her arms around me as I repeat my mantra. Something that has been sitting between us for months takes silent leave, like a shadow fleeing before light. I bury my wet face in her shoulder.**

Simon may have been hard at work that summer, but I certainly was not. I had the summer free, and it felt liberating. Oh a whim I applied to take an excellent art class that was available that summer at the local community college to those who sent in adequate samples of their work.

Upon acceptance I was giddy. Up until that point in my life, one-third of my time was spent with Bridget, one-third with Simon, and one-third drawing. Now that Simon was leaving, I planned to devote myself almost entirely to my lead and paper. My love affair with Simon had come to an end, and I anticipated that my love affair with charcoal was to deepen.

I walked down the hallway toward the classroom where my first art class was to take place, my stomach turning over. I had never taken art classes besides in high school, and wasn't sure quite what to expect from it. I came to what I thought was the proper door and paused momentarily in front of it, peering through the cloudy pane of glass to be sure that I was in the right place. Then I pushed it open. The room was large and spacious, lined with long wooden tables that were appropriately stained, marked and scratched from past generations of artists, forming a U against three of the four walls of the classroom. The room smelled of oils and chalk, although neither was in sight, and tall windows on the back wall cast long sunbeams that lit the room with a soft golden light. The fluorescents were not turned on, although people were already occupying the room. There were about thirty other students of varying age, though I guessed that most were in college.

I sat myself down next to a teenage boy, preferring to sit next to a stranger rather than to sit down alone. I admitted to myself that the fact that he had tanned forearms and shaggy blonde hair wasalso a factor in my decision. He turned a smile on me.

"Hi," he said congenially.

"Hey," I replied.

"You ever taken an art class with Bob before?" The boy asked, tapping a pencil absent-mindedly on the table in front of him.

"Who?"

"The teacher," he clarified.

"Oh. No."

"You'll like him," he assured me. "My name's Derek." He presented a hand for me to take. I shook it as someone sat down on my right side where the seat had been free.

"I'm Fisher," I replied.

"Fisher, huh?" said a musical voice. I turned to look at the newcomer in our conversation. She, like the others, looked to be about my age, had a short nose and sported curly brown hair that framed her face and seemed to tickle her chin. I was envious; my hair was a light mousy brown and refused to curl. "That's a pretty great name," she continued. "Where'd it come from?"

Used to this sort of reaction, I replied, "Well, I'm actually named after the bird...like a king fisher, you know?"

"You're named after a bird?" Derek asked.

"Yeah, it's sort of a family thing. My mom's named Lark."

"Well, I think it's pretty," the girl declared. "Whether or not Derek likes it." She grinned at him, teasing, and I became uncomfortably aware that they both knew each other well.

"I _do_ like it, Ana," he retorted, confirming my suspicions. "It's unique." I opened my mouth to ask how they knew each other when Bob entered the room.

Bob was not the kind of person who just walked into a room. Bob _entered._

The door banged open, cutting me off mid-question, and a large, jolly man in a baggy, hairy sweater strode into the room. He was mostly bald but had salt-and-pepper stubble liberally strewn across the lower half of his face, which also sported a large grin.

"Hi," he boomed. The classroom, with the exception of Derek and Ana, was stunned into silence. Derek and Ana smiled gaily at him and Derek put the end of his pencil into his mouth absently.

"Welcome to the Hovel! That's what I like to call this great big mess of a classroom." Bob paused momentarily and glanced around. "Well, it's not very messy at the moment. They seem to have cleaned it for the summer. But soon enough we'll have her back to her old self, eh?" This last comment seem to be directed at me and I faltered, but soon realized that he was not talking to me at all but Derek and Ana, who broadened their smiles. I wondered if everyone was as cheerful after spending time with Bob. "Now, I just want to make one or two things clear to everyone here! This class is not about learning how to draw! You already know how to draw, or you wouldn't be here! This class is about learning how to draw _better._ It's about developing technique, changing up your style, maybe trying something new. Broadening your horizons! Moving you out of your comfort zone, eh?"

I felt as if no teacher could possibly be as enthusiastic or loud as Bob was all around the clock. I wondered if he had a wife and kids, and if so, what condition their eardrums were in.

The first day of my art class was consumed 'getting to know' each other. Once introductions were made all around, he told us to each sketch out a tree (specifically the tree that loomed outside of the back window), and afterward passed them all around. I saw his point. Although everyone was drawing the same object, each drawing was drastically different. Some had drawn the tree so realistically that it almost popped out of the page. Some had leaned more toward a cartoon style. Others had made it seem dark and brooding, while still others portrayed it as a more benign presence.

"You all have your own way to draw the same object," Bob had said. "Some forms of drawing are more appropriate for different times. Hopefully in this class you will learn to portray things in a style that might be new or unfamiliar to you."

The second day was different. As soon as he banged into the room he declared that he was separating us all up into partners for some sort of project. Derek and I, who were once again seated side by side, smiled at each other. I remembered his drawing of the tree to be particularly good and was eager to work with him. Bob, apparently, had other ideas. He quickly paired me with Ana, who happened to be again seated on my right. We chatted as he paired off the other members of the class.

"It's Ana, right?" I asked her, just to be sure. I'd seen her type around campus quite frequently: wild hair, indie clothing and an indefinable artistic attitude that pervaded. Ana tapped her feet with idle energy against the floor. They were clad in a pair of ragged red Converse sneakers. She seemed to be looking me up and down, too.

"Yes," she replied. "And you are...Fisher."

"So, how do you and Derek know each other?" I asked her. She smiled and rolled her eyes, as if to say, 'Men!'

"Derek and I go way back, don't we Derek?" Derek, who was sitting near and chatting with his partner, turned around.

"What?"

"I said we go way back."

"Oh, yeah. Way back to a year ago," he replied sarcastically, dismissing Ana by turning his back to continue his own conversation. Ana shrugged.

"We're practically brother and sister," she joked. "Actually, we took a class together here last semester. Modern Lit, which happened to be total crap. We survived only through each other."

"Are you two...dating?" I asked, slightly confused.

"HA!" called Derek, who had overheard. Ana embellished.

"No," she said, chuckling, "But it turned out that he enjoys being sarcastic and crass almost as much as I do, so we kept each other sane." Bob's booming voice suddenly cut short anything else Ana was about to say. He explained to us how together the students in each team were to come up with a subject that they found particularly difficult, and to each make two completely different drawings related to the subject.

"You don't have to help each other if you don't want to. You _do_ have to work together."

Although I spent a moment trying to figure out how you could do one without the other, Ana came up with an idea almost immediately.

"Hands are the strangest, most difficult things on the human body to draw," she said, pitching her idea to me. "What if we used each other as models and drew them that way?" Her idea was better than any half-formed ones in my head, so I agreed.

The rest of the week was spent drawing each other's hands while Bob made suggestions and helpful comments.

"Stop trying to make them look so normal," he chided me once. "Hands aren't normal-looking. Draw it how you see it instead. And pay attention to the creases." The majority of the time, however, he left us to our own devices, preferring to see how we accomplished them on our own. I came to find that although I had wanted to partner with Derek, working with Ana was a very enjoyable experience.

"You have such beautiful hands," she murmured, taking them in her own and inspecting them. She turned them over and peered at my palms, then ran a finger across my lifeline. Her hands were slender and her fingers were long; "piano fingers, my Grandmother would have called them. They tickled my hand, sending a shiver up my arm. She molded one of my hands into the position that she desired, gently guiding my fingers with hers. "Keep it there," she said. "Perfect." She started to quickly sketch the outline.

Ana enjoyed talking while she worked, whereas I preferred to be silent. I had no problem, however, with talking while I modeled.

"Do you go here?" Ana asked me as she worked on the preliminary sketches of my left hand, her charcoal dancing across the page.

"Here? To this school?"

"Yeah."

"Um, no, actually. I just graduated high school."

She glanced up at me, surprised. "How old are you, then?" I got the ominous feeling that game-showers must experience: if I answered the question wrong then a loud buzzer would sound and Ana would shout, _Wrong!_

"Eighteen, as of a few months ago," I ventured.

"Ah. So you are going here in the fall?"

"No. To Whitman."

"Oh," Ana said, and returned her gaze to my hand. "More like..._this_," she corrected, reaching out and fixing one of my fingers with her own.

"How old are you, then?" I countered.

"I just turned nineteen," she said, cocking her head at the drawing and making a few brutal strokes with her charcoal. I thought that I had seen her round face before; I was fairly certain that she had been a grade ahead of me in my high school.

I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I idly watched her face as she drew. Every time she came across a new barrier she would bite her bottom lip, pause, and then attack it. I noticed that her eyebrows were very expressive, so I entertained myself by continuously trying to guess what emotion was on her face while I tried to keep my hand still.

She glanced up at me, and embarrassed, I looked away. When she returned to the drawing there was more than a hint of a smile on her face.

At the end of the week Ana and I had two completed drawings each. Hers included my hand stretched out like God's in Ana's favorite painting, The Creation of Adam, and small drawings of my hands spelling out my name in sign language. Mine were one of Ana's hands flipping off the world, and a drawing of Ana covering her face with her hands. I felt that both were meaningful, but I was not altogether sure why.

As I exited the Hovel on the day that our projects were completed I studied Ana's and Derek's backs in front of me in the hallway. They seemed to be in a heated discussion of some sort, per usual.

"Definitely," Ana was saying quietly, almost beyond my hearing.

"Definitely not!" Derek retorted, nudging her with his elbow. "Don't always be so sure."

"Just watch and learn," Ana teased, nudging him back. I decided that I liked them both, very much.

**I open my eyes before I have even fully come to terms with the fact that I am awake. Bright white light is erupting from the window, piercing my eyes. My head pounds and my eyes are still burning from last night, although as far as I can tell I feel no desire to cry. I am immediately aware of who I am and what has happened, and the thought suddenly makes me ill. I shuffle along the hallway to the bathroom.**

**There is a towel pinned up over the mirror, sagging wearily. At first I wonder how it got there, and then I vaguely remember frantically doing so the previous night to avoid seeing my own puffy face. I sit down on the bath mat cross-legged in front of the toilet, staring at its porcelain coldness. I close my eyes, feeling utterly exhausted. There are no sounds from downstairs, no slight signal as to where my parents are or to what they are doing. Suddenly there is a squeal of tires from the street outside, and someone yells and blares their horn. I am frozen for a moment, and I realize that my body is waiting for the impact of two cars to come, but it never does. My eyes fly open and feel my stomach revolting, so I turn to the closest thing and throw up into the bathtub, but there's not really anything to throw up, so I end up regurgitating sickly bile.**

**Tears sit in my eyes again, but only because I threw up. They wait patiently to spill out, but I wipe them away with a piece of toilet paper and then survey the stinking mess in the tub. I reach out and turn on the tap, and watch the yellow fluid swirl down the drain with the bathwater. When the tub looks clean, I take a deep breath. Suddenly driven, I turn and rip the towel off of the mirror. Unsurprisingly, my eyes are bloodshot and circles lurk underneath them. I twist the knob until cold water comes pouring out, and then scrub my face until I feel better.**

**When I am fully cleaned and dressed to my satisfaction I quietly head downstairs. The clock on the wall in the hallway informs me that I slept in until almost noon, which I haven't done since the time I had scarlet fever when I was fourteen.**

**I pad across the kitchen silently, stopping short when I see that my father is at the kitchen table reading the newspaper and eating an apple. His large glasses sit slightly askew on his nose, giving him a demented look as he scans a page.**

**"Why aren't you at work?" I ask. He jumps, dropping the apple, which thumps onto the hardwood floor, too decimated to roll. Our dog, Data, scrambles to grab a hold of it before Dad can, snaps it up, and runs into the living room to hide under the coffee table. Dad looks as guilty as Data had.**

**"I didn't know you were up," he stutters.**

**I shrug. "How come you aren't at work?"**

**He momentarily seems to consider one route of action, but then says, "Your mother seemed to think it was best if someone—"**

**"I get it," I dismiss, "Um...I'm going out, okay?" I pick up my key ring that I left on the counter the previous night, running my fingers along the cold edges softly.**

**"Oh? Uh...where?"**

**"Just out." I want to tell my father where I'm going and why, but something heavy sits on my tongue so I walk out of the room and he doesn't stop me. Data, who is apparently finished inhaling the apple, trails behind me hopefully wanting to go for a walk.**

**"Not this time, buddy," I mutter at him, and I close the front door behind me.**

The first two weeks of art class were divine. I quickly developed a friendship with Ana and Derek, who welcomed me with open, paint-smudged arms. I felt awkward intruding upon their unique relationship until I realized that they wanted me to. It became routine for Derek and Ana to plop their energetic selves down on either side of me each morning before class, and I readily became used to their arguments, which were often directed through me.

Ana and I began to spend afternoons together after class working on drawings that we wanted to perfect. We could often be found on her bedspread or mine, lounging on our stomachs and lazily crosshatching. Ana would talk as she worked per usual, while I kicked my feet in the summer heat. My parents worked during the days, so my house became a regular destination.

It was refreshing in more than one way to have Ana to draw with. Neither Simon nor Bridget had an artistic streak in them and for the first time I had a person that I could share my passion with. I didn't see much of Bridget in those days. I felt that putting Ana and Bridget in the same room together would result in horror. They were exact opposites: Bridget was quieter, like me, but unlike me she was conservative with her feelings, whereas Ana seemed to voice every thought that she had. She was confident; she knew what she believed in and wanted and then was loud about it. She and Derek could even be surprisingly crude if they were in the mood for it, but I got used to it quickly and once in a while I even joined in.

Then the third week of art class rolled in and I didn't like it from the start. Bob seemed to think that what the class lacked was an accurate familiarity with the proper way to draw shadows.

"The shadow is always darkest closer to the light," he would instruct, looking over my shoulder. Although shadows were not among my favorite things to spend inordinate amounts of time on, I was fully aware that I needed the practice, and so vigorously applied myself. Ana, on the other hand, was not so compliant.

"I know how to draw shadows," she would complain to me. "I'm _good_ at drawing shadows." She wasn't just shooting off her mouth, either. Ana was good at shadows. On the second day of shadows her distractions became so great that I tried to stop paying any attention.

"I was thinking maybe right here," Ana was saying, pointing out to Derek the destination for her second tattoo. He inspected her inner wrist.  
"I don't know, Ana. I feel like it would detract from the tree." Ana's first tattoo was an oak tree, the branches twining up her upper left arm. She frowned and stared at her arms as Derek took the opportunity to get back to his work. Ana was already finished and soon became bored with the lack of conversation.

"I miss nudity," she suddenly muttered while I was shading in a particularly difficult dark spot on a bed sheet that I was drawing.

"Hm," I answered eloquently, concentrating on my strokes.

"Are you paying attention? You're not paying attention."

I looked up, trying to remember what she had said. I tapped my pencil on my chin absently. "Nudity?"

"We did it last semester in my Figure Drawing course. We really should try in here."

"Figure drawing?"

"It was one of the best art classes I've ever taken. 'Exploring the concept of shape through drawing the human body.' They would bring in all these models and have us draw them over and over." She sighed. "I could sit for hours and draw torsos and not even say a word." She got a faraway look in her eyes like she could see a man's chest in front of her as she spoke.

"Well, ask Bob," I said, returning to my drawing. "Maybe we're going to." I had never actually used naked human beings as models before, but I knew that most artists did and had no problem trying. In fact, the idea intrigued me.

"Well, come with me after class and we can ask him, then."

"Okay," I agreed, feeling a sense of excitement at the thought of drawing something other than shadows.

Bob shook his head when we presented the idea to him. "I had the same thought as you, girls, but the board refuses to give me money to hire models for this summer course. Frankly, it's stupid. You all pay enough for this class. And honestly, it's very good for artists to have that kind of experience."

Ana raised her eyebrows. "Isn't there any way around it?" she asked.

Bob shrugged. "You could always do it on your own time," he said. "The cheap way."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Get one of your friends to model for you. Or model for each other."

Ana and I looked at each other.

Ana and I decided to do it at my house. I wanted to do these drawings, and frankly, I wasn't about to ask Bridget to model for me. My house was the clear option for privacy. Ana was living with her mother for the summer and neither of us wanted her walking in on us naked. I was grateful for that small mercy because my throat closed up whenever I thought about having to be naked in front of Ana. It eased a little when I knew that it would only be in my room, but not a lot.

Possibly sensing my apprehension, Ana volunteered to be drawn first. In retrospect, however, it is probable that she simply wanted to. She was so nonchalant about it, slipping her shirt over her head and tossing it down onto my carpet where it landed with a soft thump. I stared at it lying there while she shimmied out of her jeans and underwear. My hands felt clumsy and awkward, and there was a heavy dread in the pit of my stomach, wondering what I had gotten myself into. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I would have to, in turn, eventually take my own clothes off to be drawn.

"Are you gonna move that pencil or just draw me with your mind?" Ana suddenly asked, teasing. Snapped out of my reverie, I looked her in the face, something that I had been avoiding. She was lounging on my bed and smiling good-naturedly at me, not appearing awkward or embarrassed at all.

"Oh, yeah. It's just..." I pointed. "The sheet."

"Ah, right." Ana pulled the bed sheet over her waist and lounged to the side. "What do you think?" she asked. "Sufficiently artistic? Or maybe this is better—" She suddenly screwed her eyes shut and stuck her tongue out at me. Whether she meant it to have an effect or not, I relaxed, giggling a little bit.

"Here," I said. I stood up and moved over to the bed from where I had set up my easel and smoothed the sheet so that it properly outlined her hips. She smiled at me and said quietly,

"Thanks."

I walked back to my easel and began to draw. Ana was keeping uncharacteristically quiet and I found the silence this time to be altogether too intrusive. The only sounds that I heard were the familiar _shushing_ of the pencil across the paper, and our breathing. I found that my fingers were trembling slightly, forcing me to draw and redraw the curving line of Ana's neck. I desperately wanted her to say something to shatter the silence, but her eyes were closed and she looked perfectly relaxed.

I forced myself to speak instead. "Did, uh...did you design that tattoo yourself?" I asked, pushing the words through the silence. Ana's eyes drifted open and she glanced up at her left arm.

"No, I didn't," she replied. "I thought that it might be too cliché, designing my own tattoo. I actually got an ex to do it." Her expression looked forlorn for a moment as she studied it.

"How long ago did you get it?"

"Oh, god, not that long ago. Maybe a year." The more words that came from her mouth, the more comfortable I felt. The sound of our voices made it easier to think, or to not think. The shaking in my hand quelled. There was a faint scratching at the door from Data, who loved Ana and followed on her heels everywhere she went. I knew that he would only get in the way, so I ignored his plea for entry, letting the sound drown beneath the murmur of our conversation.

"Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?" Ana asked me. I chuckled.

"I don't really think a tattoo would look good on me," I replied.

"Bullshit; they look good on everyone," she retorted, but I only shrugged skeptically. "You don't believe me? Look, I'll draw one right now." Before I could protest, Ana was up and beside me at the easel, flipping to a new piece of paper and plucking the pencil right out of my fingers. Her bare breast brushed my arm as she leaned in.

"Don't look," she commanded, and I focused my eyes on the easel. "I said, don't look!" Ana reiterated, putting a hand over my eyes. I realized that she had meant the easel and not her. A minute passed and then Ana presented her work.

"Voila!" We both started laughing at the same time.

"That will never, ever happen," I chided, pushing her back toward the bed.

"At least give him a chance!" she protested, lying down again.

"Ronald McDonald has no place on my body whatsoever." I flipped back to the drawing of Ana, grateful that this was going so well.

Of course, I felt differently two days later when it was my own turn to be drawn, but Ana, in her way, made it easier for me without realizing that she was. After a while, strangely enough, I began to look forward to the lazy afternoons after art class in my bedroom, where we could be completely open with each other. Once or twice we even let Data join us as long as he was on his most gentlemanly behavior. It was always a slight disappointment when Ana had to leave for The Daily Bagel, where she worked in the evenings.

Then one day we found that both of our drawings were completely finished to our satisfactions, down to the very finest lines. We agreed not to show them to each other until we showed them to Bob, so I tucked mine away in the top drawer of my bureau, Ana put hers in her bag, and suddenly—there was nothing more to do.

"I feel a bit like I have no purpose in life," I joked, looking at my empty easel.

"Oh, stop being so melodramatic," Ana chided, flopping back onto my bed. "This was more comfortable than drawing in the studio. Besides, we can still keep drawing other things. We aren'tlimited to what we're working on in class." An idea seemed to strike her suddenly. Her eyebrows crept up her forehead as she said, "Do you want to go on an adventure tonight?"

"Want kind of adventure?" I asked warily.

"Do you want to come with me to this really great place where I go to draw?"she asked. One side of Ana's mouth had drawn up in a mischievous half-smile; her round cheeks were flushed.

I had half-expected that whatever came out of Ana's mouth would be a little more exciting by the way her eyes were lighting up. I smiled and shrugged. "Sure. When?"

"Around midnight or so," Ana answered vaguely. It seemed strange to me, but I agreed.

"Cool," Ana said, swinging her legs to the floor and picking up her bag. "I'll be here at twelve sharp." And then she was gone.

I stayed in my room for the rest of the afternoon, fiddling about and on occasion taking out my drawing to overview it; to be sure that it was perfect. At midnight exactly there was a sharp _crack_ from my window.

I ran to it and threw up the sash. I peered into the darkness, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. Ana was on my lawn, waving her arms in the air.

"What are you doing!" I hissed.

"Throwin' rocks at your window," she said simply.

"Well, don't. It's too loud. I'll be right down." As quietly as I could manage I exited the house, so as to not awake my parents. They didn't mind me going out late, but both were light sleepers, so I crept around the waiting creaks in our stairwell.

Ana waited patiently as I stepped carefully across the lawn toward her. Data spent time frequently in this grass, and I wasn't about to step in something squishy. It was a warm night, but comfortably so. I clutched my sketchbook in one hand but noticed soon that Ana carried nothing but a flashlight. I felt foolish for assuming that my sketchbook would be needed.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Ana didn't answer my question. "Come on," she urged, starting to move out of my yard and into the street. I followed her curiously. Ana liked to be mysterious as a rule, so I allowed her to have her fun. I guessed that we were heading someplace nearby because Ana gave no indication to distance but had not asked me to drive. We walked down a few roads I was familiar with until we turned onto smaller, lesser-known roads. A few cars had sped past us, but on these back roads it was much stiller, and much quieter.

I always found it interesting that because night was quieter every small sound seemed so much louder. Crickets were singing an a cappella symphony as Ana and I slipped like shadows down the cracked sidewalks. Every block or so we would stroll under a street lamp, and the falsely orange light would throw our faces into harsh relief for a few moments before sliding away to oblivion.

Eventually Ana turned off the road completely and we began walking across a flat meadow. Out of the inky blackness ahead of us loomed a thick wood. I halted in my tracks, unsure.

"Are we—"my voice seemed exaggeratedly loud in the night air. I lowered it. "Are we going in there?" Ana stopped with me and contemplated my face.

"Definitely," she replied.

"Is it safe?" I asked, biting my lower lip.

"I go in here all the time. There's nothing besides some raccoons and bats. I promise it's safe. Also, I _do _have a flashlight. Come on, trust me." Ana had a way with cajoling. I looked at the woods apprehensively. "Want me to hold your hand, Fisher?" Ana teased, squeezing my hand with her cool fingers. I tugged my arm away.

"Oh, stop it," I said. "Let's go." It wasn't that I had never been in the woods at night before. I couldn't pinpoint my feelings, but the air seemed to buzz with my nerves.

Ana flicked on the flashlight as we continued into the trees, the beam dancing from trunk to trunk and across the ground like a living being. I picked my way carefully through the undergrowth. Brambles caught at the hems of my jeans but I tugged away from them gently. Ana led the way confidently and I followed in her shadow until after a few minutes we came unexpectedly out into a clearing.

My eyes widened in wonder. Ana had brought me to a large clearing in the forest about the size of a football field. It seemed to glow ethereally in the eerie light. It was lit by a luminescent half-moon that was high in the clear sky. We had left the city's ambient light behind us, revealing a beautiful indigo sky freckled with thousands of tiny stars, like salt spilled on a navy tablecloth. The Milky Way was clearly visible in the midst of it, cutting a swath across the sky. In the middle of the field was one large, gnarled oak tree, stretching its branches upward as if it were praying to the sky itself.

"It's beautiful," I whispered.

"I know," said Ana simply, watching me with a kind of sad smile. She made her way to the tree while I trailed behind her with my head thrown back, following the stars with my eyes. It was clear that Ana spent long periods of time in those grasses by the familiar way that she moved through them. "Here," she said, and plopped down into the shorter grass next to the tree. Upon closer inspection it seemed beaten down, as if it were crushed often. Ana flicked off her flashlight and darkness pressed in from every direction but the sky. I sat down directly next to her, leaning against the trunk of the tree and gazing at the stars through the overhead branches. The sky looked like a cracked mirror, the branches and leaves crossing it in mad, crooked lines.

Once again there was a profound silence, excluding the crickets, whose concerto was now raised to the level of almost screeching. The stillness was punctuated only by our occasional shifts to find a better sitting position against the uneven trunk. Eventually we ended up leaning against each other's shoulders to gain better balance.

I glanced at Ana in my peripheral vision. Her eyebrows were low over her eyes.

"Tell me about your family," she suddenly said, making me jump slightly. She stretched her legs out but kept her eyes fixed on the sky.

"What about them?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "Anything."

I pulled my knees up to my chest and thought. "Well..." I paused. "There isn't much to tell. I don't have any brothers or sisters. It's just my parents and Data and me. My mother works for the IRS, my dad's an accountant. Mostly boring."

"What about you?" Ana asked.

"What do I want to do for a living?"

"No, I mean...tell me one random thing about yourself." She wasn't looking at the sky anymore; her eyes were fixed on my face.

"I, uh...what am I supposed to say?"

"Just anything."

"Okay. I hate tuna fish."

At this Ana burst into peals of laughter. She threw her head back and let the laughter dance out of her throat. "What?" I asked, not understanding the joke. Ana just shook her head. "Well, what about you, then?" I countered. "What's one random thing about yourself?" Ana's face melted into thought.

"I have an older brother and sister," she finally said. "I love them both. Except, like my father, we have no idea where Russell is. Lauren lives about an hour away and I see her all the time."

"How old is she?"

"Lauren? She's twenty-six. She visits a lot. I don't know. I haven't seen Russell in like...two years." Ana picked at a blade of grass near her ankles and then smiled at me bravely.

"I'm sorry," I said sincerely. I would have always liked to have a brother or sister, but at the same time I couldn't imagine what it would be like.

"You don't need to be, but thanks," Ana replied, and her smile changed. She was staring directly at me. I glanced away and when I looked back her eyes were still fixed on my face.

"What?" I asked self-consciously. I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. Then Ana did the last thing I would have ever expected her to do. She leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips, placing her hand on the back of my head. At first I was so surprised that I didn't move a muscle. Then I snapped out of it and jerked quickly away from her. My hand slapped over my mouth as if an extremely obscene word had slipped out. Ana stared at me.

"What?" she asked, clearly confused.

"What-what was that?" I half-stammered.

"It's called a kiss," Ana said, chuckling. She peered into my face, becoming serious with what she saw. "You didn't want me to." It was a not a question, but a statement. I shook my head a little, and Ana sat back, blowing out a stunned breath. "Oh."

I rubbed my fingers against my lips, trying to stay calm. "Uh...Why did you think I did?"

"Because...because, I don't know, you were acting like it. You're not gay?" Her eyebrows were knit over her eyes, confused.

"...no."

"Really?"

"Really. Are you?"

"Well..."She shifted against the tree trunk. "Yeah. Obviously." We sat still in the shadow of the tree, stunned. Ana tugged on her ragged shoelaces. I said nothing, but my heart was beating in my throat and so I cleared it quietly.

"I'm sorry," Ana murmured as if in reply.

"No, that's...okay," I managed awkwardly.

"Do you want me to take you home?" she asked. Suddenly I was struck with a longing for my own safe bedroom. I was tired and slightly bewildered. Nothing sounded better than crawling onto my cool sheets and putting my pillow tightly over my head.

"Okay," I said.

We walked home in virtual silence, both of us shuffling our feet, as we went, against the pavement of the streets. Ana, usually so talkative, seemed to find herself with nothing to say. I glanced at her to see that her ears were burning scarlet, though the night was cool. I wasn't sure if I had offended her or just hurt her feelings. Or possibly both. Without her usual chatter I only had my thoughts for company—and oh, how many there were.

I was continuously rubbing my lips, not able to get the feeling of Ana's mouth on mine out of my head. It disturbed me, although as I thought about it I couldn't discern any difference between kissing a boy such as Simon and kissing Ana. There was the same softness and the same thrill, and I wracked my brains to sort out how that was possible. I struggled to remember if there had been any signs leading up to this as she had implied, and realized with guilt that there were.

_Want me to hold your hand? _She had been flirting, I thought, wincing, while at the same time knowing somewhere in the front of my mind that I had unwittingly flirted back. I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of my habit of watching her face, her personified eyebrows. I looked at her again, pondering the streaks of emotion that lay over her eyes, which were colorless shadows in the summer darkness. Again the feeling of Ana kissing me jumped back into my mind. I could almost feel her cool hand on the nape of my neck, which reminded me of her hand holding mine, and then her hands guiding mine to draw a portrait of me.

Ana noticed me gazing at her face and her ears flushed a darker shade of red. "What?" she asked self-consciously.

"What? Sorry. Just staring off into space," I mumbled, covering for myself.

"Oh." Ana stopped in her tracks and nodded at the street where we had arrived. "Here you are." We had come to my own street, where the white houses loomed out of the darkness on either side like expectant ghosts.

"I guess I'll see you tomorrow," I said, turning onto my street and leaving Ana on the corner. As I walked past her I thought that I heard her say mumble,

"I'm sorry."

But she could have been just clearing her throat.

When I opened the door to my bedroom a reassuring emptiness breathed out of it that immediately brought me comfort. Shadows lurked in the corners, belonging to nothing but my walls. As I slipped off my shirt I thought of Ana, who had told me that she used to share a room with her older sister. I couldn't imagine coming into my room at night to find another body already there, possibly just a lump under the blankets, but a presence nonetheless, filling up all the emptiness of my room. I stepped through space to fall into my bed.

**When I arrive at Ana's house I pull over to the curb and sit in the car for a few minutes, listening to the engine run down and staring at the faded white paint on the front door. The afternoon sunlight rubs its cheek gently across my windshield. When I finally get out of the car my legs feel too weak to hold up my body, but I make my way to the door despite the shakiness. I knock as hard as I can, ignoring the doorbell, wanting to feel the solidity of the wood under my knuckles. After a few moments a strange woman who looks to be in her late twenties opens the door.**

**We stare at each other.**

**"Sorry," I say, confused. "I was looking for Mrs. Carson."**

**"Oh," said the woman. "She's at the florists right now, but she is supposed to be back in a little over an hour." Her eyes flutter shut for a moment, and I notice that she looks as if she has not slept for days. "Do you want to come back later, or should I tell her something for you?" She looks at me expectantly, and I am suddenly at a loss for words, so I just say,**

**"No. Thanks anyway," and I start to turn away, almost relieved.**

**"I'm sorry, but do I know you from somewhere?" she asks, making me pause.**

**"Not that I know of," I respond.**

**"You look very familiar," she persists. "What's your name?"**

**"Fisher."**

**Her eyes grow wide and her mouth opens slightly. "Oooh..." she whispers. "Oh, my god. I do know you. You're the girlfriend." My heart sinks, but I nod. She steps out of the threshold toward me. "I'm Lauren," she says. "Ana's sister." A sudden sense of familiarity washes over me.**

**"She told me about you," I say. Lauren nods.**

**"She told me about you, too. But I recognize you from the drawings. She has all these drawings..."**

**I feel tears pricking at my eyes, but for once I blink them back. "I do, too."**

**"Will you come in?" she asks me, suddenly. I hesitate. "Please, come in," she says more urgently. I feel a bit awkward, but something about the expression on her face makes me agree. She ushers me into the house and in the direction of the kitchen, and as we pass through the living room I see that there is a small child sitting on his knees in front of a television, staring at a loud cartoon.**

**"That's Jonas," Lauren tells me, seeing where my glance is directed. "He's my son. He's four. We're staying out here for a while to help out Mom, but his daddy couldn't get away from work, so..." she shrugged helplessly.**

**"I don't think Ana ever mentioned him," I say as we enter the kitchen. Evidence of a young child is strewn all over the dining table in the form of crayons.**

**"She didn't see him much," Lauren explains, brushing aside a pile of crayons with her fingers so that she can sit down at the table. She sits for a moment in silence, looking at me. I stand in discomfort, wondering if she has asked me in for a particular reason.**

**"It's funny..." she starts in a far-off tone of voice. "I don't know you. But I feel like I ****do**** know you. I've heard so much about you. Ana and I talk on the phone all the time. I guess...even though I grew up and had a kid and everything, I was still basically just her older sister. She told me everything." Lauren laughed lowly. "I used to tease her about everything."**

**I frown a bit. "Everything...what?"**

**"Oh, you know. She'd never had a girlfriend who was younger than her, for one thing." I feel my cheeks turning red.**

**"Yeah," I concede, although not feeling too congenial toward Lauren at the moment. "She said you gave her a hard time."**

**"I did," admits Lauren softly, fiddling with a turquoise Crayola. "But it was all just jokes, of course." I am struck with the sense that Lauren and Ana, in regular circumstances, would be almost exactly alike: sarcastic, teasing, and jovial. The idea softens me and I sit down in a chair across from her.**

**"I can see where Ana gets it," I say, smiling gently. Lauren smiles a little back, but then her face twists and she groans, putting her head in her hands.**

**"You must hate me." Shocked, I stare at her.**

**"Why would I hate you?" I ask.**

**"Because if it weren't for me, none of this would have happened. You don't understand. She called me, Monday, for advice. She wanted to know if she was right, you know, if she should go. I mean, I had no idea she would be walking there so late at night, but..." Lauren squeezes her head in agony, her knuckles turning white. "Stupid," she whispers. There is silence for a moment, in which you can hear an explosion echo from the television in the other room.**

**"That doesn't make it your fault," I tell her. She lifts her head and looks at me.**

**"I know," she says. "But I need something to blame."**

**"Mama?" a small voice says quietly. I look, and standing in the doorway is Jonas. "Mama, can I have lunch now? I wanna sam-wich."**

**"Okay, bud," says Lauren, standing up. "Did you turn off the T.V.?"**

**"Oops," he says, smiling.**

**"Go turn it off and I'll make you a sandwich," his mother tells him. He scampers in the direction of the living room. "Do you want something to eat?" she asks, opening the cupboards and taking down a jar of peanut butter.**

**"No, thanks," I reply. She stops and gives me another one of her indecipherable looks, which I have come to recognize.**

**"When was the last time you ate?" I think back to the food-less vomit, and then shrug.**

**"I know it seems like you aren't hungry now," says Lauren in a soft voice, "But you have to eat. I did because of Jonas, but it made me feel better. Honestly."**

**I still hesitate, so she screws open the top and waves the jar under my nose. "Come on, Fisher. It's peanut butter. Good stuff!" For a moment she reminds me so much of Ana that I have to give** **in.**


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up and I missed Ana. I hit the snooze button and continued to lie in bed, my sheets tangled around my bare legs, staring at the ceiling and wondering what I was feeling. It wasn't like I wasn't going to see Ana anymore just because she had kissed me. As a matter of fact, I was going to see her in an hour at art class. The problem was that I knew relations had to be different between us now. There would be no more escapes from the heat into my air-conditioned house to draw on my bed; nor drinking lemonade in the backyard while listening to Ana's favorite bands. I could probably spend all of those lost afternoons with Bridget, but I was totally aware that it would not be the same. I was missing Ana's company before I was even deprived of it.

My alarm clock sounded again, reminding me to get out of bed if I wanted to see Ana at all. I turned it off, noting that there were now only fifty-five minutes left until class.

My heart skipped a beat.

I peered through the glass pane in the door before entering the classroom but couldn't spy Ana from the doorway. I opened the door and moved quickly to my usual seat, trying to look nonchalant. It wasn't until I sat down that I noticed that not only was Ana not within eyeshot, but she wasn't in the classroom at all.

"Good morning!" Derek piped up, startling me. I hadn't even noticed that I'd sat next to him out of habit. "You okay?" he asked, leaning in to look at my face.

"Um...yes. Where's Ana, do you know?"

"Probably on her way. Class doesn't start for five minutes." He pointed his pencil at the clock over the doorway and it indeed read five-to-nine. I gave an acknowledging grunt.

"You seem really...distracted," Derek said as he watched my eyes follow the second hand. I shook my head and sighed.

"Sorry," I replied. "I had a weird night last night."

"Ah," Derek sighed sympathetically. "Hangover?"

"Um, no." I turned to look at him. "Derek, it's...it's a Tuesday."

"Just thought I'd ask." At that moment Ana walked into the room and made her way to us, half-smiling. Bob was following on her heels, so no one had a chance to say anything before we were drowned out by his boisterous voice. He talked to us for what seemed to me like a very long time before setting us free to work on our individual drawings. As soon as there was a silent moment Ana leaned over to me and murmured,

"You don't have to sit with us. It's okay." I looked at her, but she was staring out the window.

"I want to," I said. Ana's eyebrows flickered down and she sat silently for a beat before excusing herself to go to the bathroom.

"What is going on between you two?" Derek asked as soon as she'd gone. "Did you get in a fight or something?"

"No, not really," I responded. A moment passed before I said, "Hey, Derek?"

"Yeah."

"Did you know that Ana's gay?"

He ran his fingers through his blonde hair. "Did you...not know that Ana is gay?" he asked carefully.

"I had no idea!"

"Ouch. Fuck. That sucks. She comes on strong sometimes. What'd she do?"

"Wait, so you knew?"

Derek laughed. "Most definitely. She's not exactly a closet case."

"I had no idea," I repeated, stunned. I looked down at the table and then admitted, "She kissed me." Derek sat up straighter, his face brightening.

"No kidding? Wow, she has guts. So, come on." He nudged me with his elbow. "You interested?" He paused, waiting for an answer, but reconsidered when he saw the expression on my face. "Fisher, wait...do you like girls?" I opened my mouth to reply, and then shut it. I thought about Simon.

"I definitely like guys," I said firmly.

"Well, good for you. But that means absolutely nothing," he assured me.

"What're you talking about?"

Ana had returned and was walking toward us. I watched her jeans as she walked, not wanting to look into her face, my heart pounding.

"I just mean that you can like guys and still like girls, too," Derek muttered, breaking off as Ana sat down. "Hey, Sunshine," he shot in her direction.

I spent the rest of the class in silence, feeling as if my whole reality was twisting with the decision that I was about to make. As Derek, Ana and I left the classroom I gathered my resolve into a tight ball in my chest and squeezed it.

"Can I talk to you a second, Ana?" I piped up.

"And this is where I make myself _very_ scarce," Derek replied with a grin, breaking away from us. Ana and I slowed as we walked down the hallway, letting the stream of students from the classroom trickle by us on their way out.

"What's up?" Ana asked. Her tone of voice betrayed no nerves.

"Okay," I said, struggling to remember the intricate details of the speech that I had rehearsed in my head for the majority of the morning. "So. Okay. We both know that last night was kind of weird; I guess we were both pretty surprised and it was late and I was tired. I mean, I barely knew what was going on. Well, that's not really true, I mean, I knew what was going on, I just wasn't sure..." We had come out of the hallway into the sunlight and Ana stopped walking.

"Fisher. Out with it," she demanded.

"Okay," I said. "I think I made a mistake earlier."

Ana groaned. "Oh, please, Fisher, no." she begged, "Don't apologize. I'm embarrassed enough as it is."

"I'm not apologizing! I'm...I'm saying I think that I like you." There were at least five very solid seconds of silence in which I wished with all my heart that Ana's eyebrows would move, would give up some flicker of emotion. They did not.

"_What_?" Ana asked. My shoulders sagged. It had been hard enough to say the first time. "You said you weren't gay," she stated bluntly.

"I know. I...don't think I am." I looked down at my feet, self-conscious.

"I am." Ana countered.

"Um...I noticed." There was silence again.

"I don't get it," Ana said. "You are or you aren't gay?" Her tone of voice was defensive, which was understandable when taken into consideration that I had snubbed her earlier.

"I don't know!" I exclaimed. "I don't think I'm gay, but I do think I like you." Ana didn't seem to be taking the news as well as I had expected her to. She stepped closer, reached out and touched my arm gently, seeing that I was troubled.

"I'm sorry," she said kindly. "I honestly thought you were gay the whole time. You definitely acted like it."

"And, you? You've dated girls and stuff?" I asked. Ana laughed quietly.

"I have had crushes on girls since I was in second grade."

"Oh. Wow." It was funny how Ana had a knack of making me feel out of my league.

"But I've only seriously dated three, actually. And none veryrecently. But I would...I did want to try it out with you."

I stared at the grass. "Um, I don't know," I mumbled, panicked.

"No, you get me wrong," Ana reassured me urgently. "I wanted that before I knew that you don't usually like girls. Don't worry about it. No pressure. Let's just start over, okay? From scratch."

But as soon as I knew Ana wasn't pushing to start a relationship I felt infinitely better. After all, I knew that I wanted her, even if I didn't know anything else about it.

"How about not completely from scratch?" I hinted. Ana smiled, one eyebrow rising in a question.

"That works, too."

**I follow at Lauren's heels as we climb up the stairs like I hadn't stepped up this same stairwell hundreds of times previously. I watch my feet as I climb, noting the shadows that I cast across the sharp angle of the wood. I imagine that these shadows are my past self padding up these same stairs. I wonder what I was thinking at that moment, if I was happy. If I was with Ana. A part of my brain acknowledges that Ana's shadow is also on these stairs, somewhere with mine. That my past self will always be, at some point, climbing stairs with Ana. Or at least our shadows will be.**

**The hallway at the top of the staircase is no less familiar to me than the rest of the house, but I am content to trail behind as Lauren leads the way. I am not sure that if I were in front I would have made it past the kitchen at all.**

**The door to Ana's bedroom is ajar slightly, as Ana always left it, but I know that it has been entered since it was vacated. Lauren gives the door a small push, and it swings open, not bothering to emit the cliché creak. Ana's room is kept just as mine is—a state of ordered disaster, clothes spread on the floor but never in the way; books shelved but un-alphabetized. No drawings cover the walls, but I know precisely where she keeps them.**

**Lauren and I stand like a drawing of The Evolution of Man, the shorter behind the taller in single file, both staring into the small yet gaping expanse of Ana's bedroom. Lauren, the model of a proper human, moves into the room; but I, ape, have not yet learned to walk upright. I am not even sure that I can exist in Ana's room without her. Wherever her shadow is, it isn't in there.**

**I realize that Lauren also knows where the drawings are as she kneels down and pulls open the bottom drawer of Ana's bureau, which squeaks loudly. With a massive rustling, Lauren lifts up a great stack of loose-paper sketches in her arms and carries them over to me.**

**"Mom has her sketchbooks," she explains. I nod, but I'm staring at the uppermost drawing. My own face looks out at me, a drawing that I don't remember ever posing for.**

Ana was a very straightforward person. If she wanted something, then she would clearly make it known to me. I didn't always give it to her, but paradoxically, Ana was just as ready to comply to my wishes as she was to express her own. It always seemed strange to me that with her blunt nature she had carefully crept around the issue of her attraction to me for so many weeks.

She explained to me that she was in the habit of letting other people make the first move. She didn't like to be the one initiating any relationship, but she was adept at singling out the type of person who would be attracted to her.

"Has anyone ever said no to you?" I asked her one evening as she attempted to creep my shirt up over my head.

"You do," she answered, kissing me. "All the time."

"How frustrating that must be for you."

"You've no idea."

Ana's habit of talking while she worked had rubbed off on me so that we could hardly go a minute without saying something. We didn't whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears, but actual conversations were often held between kisses. Ana also had no problem with discussing our relationship openly in front of Derek during art class, which at first was more difficult for me. Far from being ashamed of Ana, however, I grew more comfortable with it as time went on. My parents, however, were still in the dark.

"I can't!" I complained to her as she tried again to lift my shirt. "Mom could come in any second!" It was Saturday and we were lounging in my bedroom, but my parents were right down the stairwell. My mother's knocks would give us enough time to stop kissing, but no one could put a shirt back on that quickly.

"Blah, blah, blah," Ana murmured, kissing me again shortly and then sitting back against the headboard of my bed. "I guess we shouldn't be kissing at all if you're that worried." She started combing her fingers through her short brown hair, attempting to straighten it.  
"Wow," I said. "Ana Carson is actually being rational for once?"  
She made a face at me.

"Sarcasm does not become you, my dear." Ana was wearing a red t-shirt and ragged denim shorts, splaying her bare legs out on my bedspread. "In any case, this only gives me the opportunity to lecture you further on gay culture." She settled herself into a lying-down position as I groaned. Since Ana had found out that I'd never heard of Geography Club, she'd taken it upon herself to teach me all the knowledge I was apparently lacking in the gay culture department. She clapped her hands together.

"Pop quiz! Okay, let's start with Elton John."

"Ana!"

"No? How about Virginia Woolf?"

"Stop it."

"Okay, okay. Tegan and Sara. Extra credit point: Why are they a _terrible_ band?" I hit her in the face with a pillow just as my phone rang. I crawled over Ana to pick it up, hushing her with my hand.

"Hello?"

"Fisher?" The voice on the other end made me freeze. "Hey! It's Simon."

"Oh. Oh! Hi," I managed, turning my back on Ana. I hadn't heard from Simon since the day that he broke up with me. It had only been a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't thought about Simon more than once or twice in that time. Now here I was: sitting on my bed with a girl. I licked my lips self-consciously as I thought this, and Ana suddenly piped,

"Jane Lynch!"

"What?" Simon asked, as I shook my head at Ana sternly and put a finger to my lips.

"Nothing. How are you?"

"I'm...good. I'm actually very good. I'm in town for the weekend."

"You're—no kidding!" Even as I said this I worried that my voice sounded too fake, so I cleared my throat.

"I thought maybe we could see each other? I mean, maybe tomorrow afternoon?"

"Tomorrow. Yes, yeah. Yes, I think I can do that. Yes. I mean...well, yeah." Behind me, Ana sniggered at my word choice.

"What time is good for you?"

"Noon, I guess."

"Okay, I'll come by."

"Cool. Alright. Bye."

"See you tomorrow."

"Right." I hung up and stared out the window with the phone still sitting in my palm.

"Who was that?" Ana asked. "And how come you say yes to _them_? Like ten times?" Despite myself, I had to laugh.

"That was my ex-boyfriend," I said.

"No kidding?" Ana asked, looking delighted.

"His name's Simon."

"Huh," Ana mused, smiling to herself. She stretched one long leg upwards and pointed her toes at the ceiling for no apparent reason. Then she began to giggle.

"What?" I asked.

"It's just so funny to think about you being with a guy. I mean, you are just so _gay_, Fisher. I met you and my gaydar went absolutely haywire."

"I don't have gaydar," I said sullenly.

"No. No, you do _not_," Ana chuckled. "I still can't believe that you didn't know I'm gay. I just don't know how that happened."

"I know now," I said, trying to be coy as I leaned over her upturned face. The door opened, and I jerked upwards, almost falling off of the bed. Bridget stood in the doorway, her eyebrows raised. "Hi!" I practically yelled. Ana sat up coolly and gave Bridget a friendly smile.

"What's, uh, going on?" Bridget asked, looking from Ana to me.

"Well," I said. "Well. Bridget, this is Ana; Ana, this is Bridget."

"Nice to meet you," Ana said politely, but she stood up and started to gather her things. "I should go, though," she explained, "but I'll see you tomorrow morning." She squeezed past Bridget, who still took up the threshold of my room. There was silence for a moment.

"Your mom let me in," Bridget said by way of explanation, walking over to my easel and pulling out the wooden stool to sit on. Inwardly I cursed at my mother and her disregard for privacy. Bridget watched me expectantly. "So?" she finally said. "Are you going to tell me what's going on between you and that girl, or what?"

"Ana," I automatically corrected.

"Right." Bridget didn't move a muscle. She had always been an extraordinarily difficult person to read. She had white blonde hair that was often mistaken for being fake. Men would approach her expecting the typical dumb blonde and were always surprised to encounter Bridget's cold, calculating stare. She overanalyzed situations and was overbearing, but most of all she was my best friend. As harsh as she was with other people, she tended to be easier on me because she understood me, just as I forgave her for her seriousness because I understood her. All the same, I hesitated before answering the question.

"There is something," I admitted. Bridget rolled her eyes.

"Fisher, please. I'm not stupid. You've been blowing me off to hang out with her for weeks. I mean, that alone doesn't really mean anything, but now..." She trailed off, gesturing at the bed where I still sat, the phone in my hand, my hands in my lap.

It had only been two days since Ana and I had talked after art class, but two days was a supremely long time for me to keep something so enormously important from Bridget. The truth was, I felt that telling her was giving up something that I had to myself for the moment, that was only mine. I didn't want Bridget's knowledge of Ana to taint what I had. And, just maybe, I didn't want Bridget to look down on Ana, for Bridget was rational in every way that Ana never was.

"She's basically my girlfriend," I finally managed. Bridget narrowed her steely blue eyes in thought, but said nothing. "You don't even seem surprised," I added. Bridget only nodded a little as if she weren't listening to what I was saying. Then she blinked.

"Well, okay." She said this very definitely, as if the conversation had ended.

"Okay?"

"Yes. That's okay." But now that I had started to talk about it, I didn't want Bridget to dismiss the subject.

"You think it's a phase, don't you?" I prodded. Bridget sighed.

"No, not really. Not at all, in fact. Fisher, you are one of the least impulsive people I know. You worry about everything. You live in your mind, trying to learn about yourself. It would be completely unlike you to follow a whim, or act out, or whatever. I think if you're with this girl, then you must really like her."

"I do. I like her."

"Well, I mean, that's all that matters." She smiled.

"Well...thanks," I said, stunned.

"She's pretty," Bridget added congenially.

"Thanks," I said again, chuckling. Suddenly I remembered why I was still clutching my phone. "Bridget. Simon called." Bridget shrugged.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is a bad thing! He's back for the weekend and he wants to see me and I'm here with Ana—"

"Fisher. Please," Bridget interrupted. "Do yourself a favor and calm down He broke up with you, remember? It's none of his business if you are suddenly a lesbian."

I started to argue that I wasn't 'suddenly a lesbian', but then let it go as I mulled over what she had said. I wished that I had paid attention to Simon's breakup speech more carefully. I couldn't remember anything that he said specifically, and I worried that somehow there had been a loophole, that I had inadvertently promised him something by agreeing with him at the end.

"Do you think that he wants to get back together?" Bridget asked. I chewed on my lower lip.

"It doesn't really matter," I replied. "I wouldn't anyway."

**Lauren offers to give me the drawings, but I know they aren't mine to have. At first there is a quiet but heated discussion, but Lauren sees that I really mean it and she puts them back once I have looked at all of them. In so many I see my face peering out at me, or smiling, or sleeping. It seems that my past self, tiring of the staircase, snuck past us into Ana's room and onto her paper, not wishing to be forgotten.**

**As if I can forget. My memories are one and the same with shadows; they hang over my head and darken everything around me until I can only see the world in blacks and whites. Looking out at the rest of the world from within my shadows it all seems so incredibly vivid, like a cartoon. Life is only a cartoon that hasn't been shaded in properly until you lose someone that you love. Then come the shadows.**

**When I get back to my own house I head straight for my bedroom, slap open my sketchbook, and stare at Ana's portrait. It pales in comparison to those that she has done of me. Everything pales in comparison. I rip out the page, something that I have never done in my sketchbook before. Behind that drawing is another, and then another, and then I am tearing pages out as fast as I can until my sketchbook is empty. My body feels exhausted, so I crawl into bed with my clothes on, though it's only two in the afternoon. My drawings are scattered on the floor, leaves of paper like fallen leaves of trees. I regret what I have done, but not enough to fix it.**

"I wanted to surprise you when I called," Simon said as we strolled down the street, nearing my house. Coffee with Bridget had already been consumed, assurances of well being exchanged. Simon had offered to walk me home, as I hadn't driven the few blocks to the coffee house, and Bridget had conspicuously taken her leave to let us speak privately. I found myself anxious, hoping that Simon would not bring up the one subject I desperately did not want to talk about. I could feel it, though, hovering somewhere near.

"So, are you going to be heading back soon?" I asked.

"This weekend, actually."

"Busy, busy, busy."

"Yeah. Look, Fisher. I actually want to talk to you about something while I'm here." Simon stopped in his tracks three houses down from my own. With dread, I halted next to him.

"Okay," I managed. Simon didn't waste any time. He took a deep breath and said,

"I'm not coming back in the fall."

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. "What?" I asked.

"I like working with my uncle, and I like the town. I think I am going to take a year off before I start college and earn some extra money. They could really use me."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. It's what I want to do. I know we'd hoped we might be able to get back together, but I don't think...that's not going to happen."

I blew out air from between my cheeks. I had completely missed that part of Simon's breakup speech the first time, but this was the price I paid for not paying attention.

"You're really quiet," Simon remarked.

"If that's what you want to do," I replied, "I think it's great." He was probably just glad that I wasn't crying all over him. Simon had always treated me as if I were much more emotionally unstable than I actually was.

My good luck with Simon that afternoon only made the feeling of lying in Ana's bed the next night all the more glorious. I felt suddenly free of something that I hadn't known was holding me back.

Neither Ana nor I were asleep, but her eyes were softly closed. Her arm was thrown over my body as she lay on her belly; her face nestled partly in her pillow, partly in my shoulder. I watched the dim night light from the window as it slept on her face. Her eyebrows were only still when she was falling asleep. Ana mumbled something.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I'm glad you worked things out with your boy. Simon."

"Oh. Right."

"He doesn't think I am some kind of psycho dyke who is going to corrupt you?"

I laugh, but suddenly remember that I hadn't told Simon about Ana at all. "Hardly. And by the way, don't fool yourself into thinking that you have corrupted me in any way." Ana pushed herself up onto her side to talk to me with more ease.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said, and then continued without waiting for a reply. "Have you really never thought about girls in a romantic way before? Think about it, though, before you answer. It might not be obvious." I thought about the subject for a moment.

"Not that I can think of," I replied. "But then again, I guess I wouldn't have known at the time. I didn't know with you."

"Until I kissed you."

"Yeah. So, do you ever like guys?"

"Definitely not," Ana sighed with resignation, "I experimented a little, but it really did nothing for me."

"Experimented? Like what?"

"I had sex with one," she said, looking past me pensively.

"Really?" I asked, shocked.

"Yeah, it was absolutely too weird for me. Men are so much more hairy and large and, I don't know, hard."

"That's disgusting."

"You would know better than I," Ana laughed. "And that wasn't what I meant."

"Not really."

"Not really, what?"

"I wouldn't know better than you," I admitted. Ana gazed at me.

"Fisher...you never had sex with Simon?"

"No." Ana sat up, half laughing.

"No kidding? Holy shit." At the look on my face she stopped. "Oh, come on, Fisher. I don't care, I think it's sweet." She gathered me into her arms and kissed the crown of my head.

"I just never wanted to," I grumbled sullenly. Ana chuckled.

"You might be gayer than you think," she told me.

"And you? Sleeping with a guy made you decide that you liked girls?"

"Nah, I mostly knew already. I like tits too much." She squeezed my breast quickly and I slapped her hand away.

"You are so inappropriate," I complained.

"Aw, you like it," Ana returned. She kissed me on the nose and as she did, thunder rolled in the distance. She climbed out of bed to look out the window. "Something wicked this way comes," she remarked. She dropped the sash.

**I wake up and I miss Ana. I have no idea what time it is because I unplugged my alarm clock yesterday. It's still light outside, and sunbeams lie lazily on the floor atop my drawings like a cat. Anger flares up in me at the thought that my drawings are napping on my carpet with such peace, so I purposely step on them on my way out the door. I stop in the doorway and look back at them where they now crouch, damaged. Guilt fills me and I retreat back into my room to gather them up. Seeing Ana's face again pulls out an intense longing to be with her, to see her again. I can hardly stand it, so I head out of the house to the place that I know she'll be.**

I never could coerce Ana and Bridget into really getting along. If I was to be honest, it was mostly Ana's fault. Although she was never openly hostile or rude, she made absolutely no effort to get along with Bridget. The only fights that Ana and I ever had were spats about Ana's behavior toward Bridget. She apologized, but in the end Ana still thought what she thought, which was that Bridget was uptight. I soon realized that I had been lucky that Bridget and Simon had got on so well. Friends and significant others are a natural recipe for bad. That aside, I managed to split my time between them fairly well. The other fifty people I had known upon graduating high school had seemed to blow away with the summer breeze, but frankly I was okay with that for the time being. My attention was well in demand, and I liked splitting it between Ana and Bridget.

As for Simon, I never told him about Ana at all. I couldn't bear the idea that he would think that somehow his act of breaking up with me had something to do with why I was with Ana. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. Simon and Ana were so separate in my mind that I couldn't imagine comparing them, besides to think that I was happy with Ana, happier than I had ever been with Simon.

Summer was coming to an end as August drew to a close slowly. The heat, rather than dissipating, chose to stagnate in the air. The time spent with Ana and Derek in art class seemed ludicrously short, as if something was slipping out of my fingers. Ana and I spent as much time as possible together outside of class, sometimes with Derek, but usually without him.

"Wow," Ana mused, her voice accompanied by a strange rattling sound.

"Hm?" I asked, not paying attention. I was working on the final project for art class and Ana was screwing around with the items on my desk.

"There are 1.9 calories in a tic tac," she continued, shaking the container again. I looked up.

"Ana, have you even worked on this project yet? At all?"

"Oh, look. It actually says that on the front. 'Less than two calories per mint'. Do mints _usually_ have a lot of calories?"

"Do you usually suffer from such ADD?"

Ana placed her hands on the back of my swivel chair. "Stop working," she commanded, and spun me around. "You need to sort out your priorities. Here, let me do it for you. Ahem," she cleared her throat daintily, "Number One: Ana Carson. Number Two: Entertaining Ana Carson. Number Three—" I stopped Ana's mouth with a kiss and she grinned triumphantly. "You learn quickly," she joked.

"Yes. But I have to work on this before we meet up with Derek. So just give me a second."

"Ah! Oh. Oh, I just remembered something. Look, I can't go with you guys today."

"What? Why?"

"Ah. I'm sorry. Look, an old friend called me this morning and said that she really needed to see me as soon as I was free, and I just told her that I was free, you know, during that time."

"Is she okay?"

Ana sighed. "Yeah, probably, knowing Di."

"Di?"

"Dianne. She's overdramatic. I don't know. I should see her, though."

"Do you need a ride?"

"Oh, nah. No, I'll take the bus. Go with Derek." Derek, Ana and I were going to have what Derek and Ana called, "Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night: The Sequel" tonight, and the three of us had planned to go grocery shopping for it this afternoon.

"Are you sure you want us to go without you?" I asked hesitantly. "We can always just wait until you get back."

"Don't wait, I don't know how long I'll be."

"But you'll be back by tonight, won't you?"

"Yes, I promise." Ana leaned in close. "Promise, promise, promise."

**I see Lauren approaching from a long distance, and feel surprised. Until this moment I had never considered the possibility that anyone knew about this meadow but Ana and I. It is a while before her sound carries to me, muffled by the murmurings of the wind shrugging through the grass and the leaves of the tree. I can hear the soles of her shoes as they crunch down the dry summer grasses. I wait for her to come close enough for speech, shifting my back so that the bark of the tree rests more comfortably between my shoulder blades.**

**Lauren stops ten feet away, looking down at me. She seems infinitely tall to me from where I sit. The sun angles from behind her, casting a long shadow that spills from her toes and stretches across the grass and into my lap, where it is lost, seeping into the fellow shadows of the whispering leaves above us. Her hands find a home in her pockets and live there.**

**"Did you want to be alone?" she asks. I can't decipher whether she is speaking in past tense or present tense. It doesn't matter either way.**

**"No," I answer. I hadn't been alone anyway. Lauren sits where she is, not bothering to move closer. "How do you know this place?" I ask. She tilts her chin up toward the sky.**

**"The same way you do, I suppose. Ana and I came here all the time as kids. I used to catch frogs in that creek." I peer where she indicated, having been unaware that a creek existed nearby. I realize that I can hear frogs croaking distantly.**

**"Ana brought you here," Lauren says. It isn't a question as much as a statement, but it hangs in the air, waiting to be answered.**

**"Yes. Once."**

**"I haven't been here in years. I didn't realize how much I missed it, out in the city."**

**I don't feel the need to speak, so I stare up at the leafy branches crowning the tree. Whether she feels the need to fill gaps in the conversation or she actually wants to talk to me, Lauren continues speaking.**

**"It's strange being here without her." I frown.**

**"Her shadow is here," I say. Lauren stops looking at the sky and gazes at me with a look filled to the brim with suspicion. Lauren's looks make me feel as if she can see what is happening in my very soul. There is a long pause before she speaks.**

**"Do you mean her spirit?" she finally asks cautiously.**

**"No. Her shadow. Ana has been here in the past, so some shadow of her will always be here, doing what she was doing. On some level, she exists, just not on one that we can access, because we have already passed that moment in time. At this moment in time Ana does not exist. But she did. They all overlap."**

**A thick silence seems to close upon us. Lauren's gaze eventually flits away from mine, losing itself in the tall, brittle grasses.**

**"Do you really believe that?" she finally asks.**

**"I don't know. I can feel her shadow on me. All the time. Always."**

**"A shadow is nothing but lack of light." Lauren's lungs expel air. "You aren't feeling her shadow; you're feeling what's blocking her light. We all are."**

**We look at each other, saying the same thing without speaking at all.**

Derek and I meandered down the aisles of the grocery store. I pushed the shopping cart as Derek danced from item to item, inspecting them each. "What exactly are we looking for?" I asked.

"No idea. No idea. This! This, I want this." He tossed a box of Spanish rice into the cart with a _clang_.

"What the hell?"

"Fisher, the point of Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night is that you buy a hell of a lot of random food and then cook it all and put on three pounds. It's a time-honored tradition." He turned a box of macaroni upside down and then replaced it on the shelf.

"I thought that this was only the second time you guys have done this."

"Yes. That is true. Okay, it _will_ be a time-honored tradition. Are you gonna pick something, or what?"

"I get to pick things?" Derek gave me a withering look. "Okay, okay," I said. I looked around and saw that we had come out near the dairy products. "Um, brie?" I asked, holding it up.

"Good choice," affirmed Derek, snatching it from me and putting it in the cart. "But we need fruit to go with that."

"I wish Ana could have come with us," I remarked as we made our way to the produce section.

"Yeah, what the fuck? Epic Cooking Adventure Awesomeness Night is always supposed to be three people! Shopping included!"

"Really? Who was there last year besides you two?"

Derek made a face. "Dianne Strongholde. You don't know her."

"Dianne?" A bell went off inside me. "I think that's who Ana's with right now." Derek stopped in his tracks.

"No. Dianne Strongholde?" I stopped with him, concerned at the expression on his face.

"I don't know her last name."

"It must be her. Crap." Derek started walking again, pensively.

"Wait, what? Who is she?"

"Ana's ex-girlfriend," he replied.

"Oh. The one who designed her tattoo?"

Derek frowned. "Did she? Huh. That's right, I'd forgotten that. Yeah, that tree. They used to go there and smoke all the time."

"Ana doesn't smoke."

"Pot? Yes, she does."

"Oh. Pot. Oh." We emerged into the produce section and Derek put an apple in the cart, then took it out again, saying,

"Apples are gross in the summer. A pear. A pear is what I want."

"So, what's wrong with her?" I asked, prodding him.

"With who?"

"Dianne."

"Oh. Nothing. I mean, she's a bitch. She dumped Ana last winter. I remember 'cause Ana didn't come to class for like three days. It was insane. Dianne was just kind of...ruthless. And constantly, constantly high."

"So why is Ana seeing her?" I asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." He put a yellow pear carefully into the cart.

**I suddenly notice a figure standing hesitantly on the edge of the clearing, watching Lauren and I.**

**"Who's that?" I asked, pointing. The figure is female, has light brown hair, is short. I don't recognize her. Lauren turns around and the person changes their mind and turns back into the forest, seeming to dissipate among the trees' dappled shadows.**

**"Dianne. I'll bet you anything it was Dianne," Lauren says softly as we watch her disappear .**

**"Why is she leaving?"**

**"She probably didn't want anyone to see her here. She must be too ashamed."**

**"Why?" I ask. I feel like a child, full of questions. "It's not her fault."**

**"Who do you blame, Fisher?" Lauren asks sharply. 'There has to be someone. You're human too; you blame. We all blame. Do you think it was your fault?"**

**"No," I answer quietly. A breeze stirs the grasses.**

As soon as the night had ended and Derek had made his exit, I began to question Ana about the day's events. We stacked dishes into her dishwasher as we spoke, our sentences punctuated by the clink of the plates.

"What happened?" I asked, not surreptitiously. Ana, who was rinsing the dishes in the sink, looked at me suspiciously as she slid a blue plate under the water.

"What'd Derek tell you? There's nothing to worry about."

"He didn't really say that there was. I mean, he told me that Dianne's your ex-girlfriend, so I figured that she probably wanted to see you for a reason." Ana nodded, her eyebrows looking forlorn.

"She was really upset. She just got dumped by her boyfriend." She handed me the plate, which I accepted slowly.

"She's...not gay?" I asked.

"Should the concept of bisexuality really be beyond you?" Ana pointed out.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Actually, this was the guy that she dumped me for." She practically growled in frustration. "God, it was the most ridiculous thing. Anyway, now she thinks that she can just get back together with after half a _year_—"

"Wait," I interrupted. "She tried to get back together with you?"

"Yeah, I sort of expected that going in. It's just typical Dianne." She offered me a rinsed plate but I just stared at her, wondering how she could be so nonchalant. "Don't look at me like that," she said defensively. "I know how to deal with her. She was just being really irrational, which is frustrating beyond belief. I thought maybe we could fix things between us, but she freaked out when I told her I'm dating you."

I took the plate from Ana, feeling a little conceited. "Freaked out?"

"She basically accused me of being, I don't know, wish-washy or something. Except she screamed it."

"She screamed 'wishy-washy' at you?" I asked, half-laughing.

"No, no," Ana replied, a smile tugging on her lips. "I think she screamed, 'Stupid cunt', but I got her meaning."

"What'd you do?"

"I left." Ana shrugged and handed me the last plate, which I stowed safely into place. She began to dry her hands on a dishtowel thoughtfully. "Of course, now I have to go back," she continued.

"Why would you have to do that?"

Ana looked at me as if it were obvious. "Well, I mean, if I don't go back then she'll just always be angry with me. She'll just always be stupidly and irrationally mad."

"So let her be mad," I argued, closing the dishwasher with more force than was really necessary. "What do you care? She was a bitch to you, she dumped you. You don't owe her anything." Ana lowered her eyebrows at me and I could tell that I had entered into dangerous territory.

"There's no reason to be jealous, Fisher."

"I'm not _jealous_!" I spat back.

"Then why are you acting like this? What the hell?"

"I just want to know why you care! Why the fuck do you care?"

Ana's eyes blazed. "Listen to me, Fisher, 'cause I think you need to learn this: you do not stop caring about someone just because you aren't with them anymore. A relationship isn't just a commitment for the time you're together, it's for as long as you know each other. If she's upset, I will try and make things better because I _care_ about her. Do you understand? And I am going to care about you, too. Even if you don't care about me back, since that is apparently not a concept you understand."

"Don't treat me like a child," I said. Ana slapped the dishtowel down onto the counter, her infamous temper flaring.

"You're acting like a child, Fisher. I just don't know what to tell you. I mean, just—look. I can't blame Dianne for being the way she is. I can just try and get along with her and try to help her out. I don't just have sex with someone and then never speak to them again."

My face flushed red. "You had sex with her?" Ana rolled her eyes.

"Fisher, please. We were eighteen, and in college. Don't be naïve." I couldn't answer, speechless with rage. "Look," Ana continued, "I don't want this to be something to fight about, but I am going to Dianne's apartment tomorrow night to sort things out. You just need to deal."

Without saying a word, I turned and walked out of the house. As I closed the door behind me I caught a glimpse of Ana's face, and I will always remember her expression. She looked so disappointed in me. And it's so hard, now, to get that out of my head, Ana being disappointed in me. The disappointment overshadows the good parts of what we had, so when I think of her it is always that last night that gets in the way, that last moment I looked back. In a way, that last moment will always mean more than the rest, no matter how much I wish it weren't true.

**"Whose fault, then?" Lauren prods, as persistent as Ana always was.**

**"No one's! There's no one to blame! It just happened!" I shout, and the frogs that are croaking in the distance suddenly silence. "It's not important because she's gone, and it's not important because it happened, and that's just the way it is! It's not going to make me **_**feel**_** any better!" I yell, my voice breaking on the word 'feel'. Lauren stares at me in shock and I take a deep breath. "I just...all I want is to be close to her now. As close as I can. And she's is here somewhere. Was." Lauren just shakes her head.**

**"Where?"**

**I look down and we are both enveloped in the shadow of the oak tree as if it were trying to swallow us. That, or, it dawns on me, as if it were trying to wrap its arms around us. As if the tips of its branches were reaching for the forest where Dianne had disappeared. I turn and stare at the tree. The breeze shimmies through the branches and the leaves dance with suppressed energy, rustling and chuckling with all their might. Lauren follows my gaze and soon we are both watching the tree without saying a word. The lower the sun sinks in the sky, the longer the shadow stretched out: reaching for us, reaching for the forest, reaching into the grasses and across every tall blade. It's only a shadow, I know, but relatively it is so dark.**


End file.
